Review: Best available wearables show this market's growth and shortcomings.

I had been wearing both bands for a bit more than two weeks. They'd been with me day and night, only leaving my wrists to briefly charge. They'd been with me as I prepared, and feasted, on an early Thanksgiving meal. They'd witnessed the birth of my second child. They'd reminded me, though I hardly needed reminding, that I should get more sleep while I rocked my son back to sleep. But it was at the end of a short run, the first since we'd come home from the hospital, that I was struck by how well matched these two were.

The Pebble buzzed.

The message read, "Basis: Good Job!"

As exhausted as you likely are of seeing ads and hearing pablum about wearable computing, it is still a young and very fringe market. Strictly fitness-focused activity tracking devices have experienced the most success, while devices that aim to enhance our lives through new computing and interface paradigms have achieved modest results at best. If early CES hunches are any indication, next year will likely mark the flash point for the market—the promise of a competent wearable computer may well become a reality.

But the wearable future partially depends on the wearable present. And as we end 2013, just how far along has the wearable computing market come? More importantly, how much further does it have to go? Exploring these answers starts by analyzing arguable the two best wearables available today: the Pebble Smartwatch and the Basis B1 fitness band.

These two products highlight the current highs and lows of wearable computing, while serving as a great barometer for the future. One is firmly grounded here on earth (and on your wrist), while the other takes to the sky to enhance your life and well-being. And as you can see in the journal-like entry above, we've been tossing aside any concern for fashion to pair them up and evaluate the possibilities.

Bringing you the now

The Pebble smartwatch has been among the most-discussed products of 2013. It started as a Kickstarter darling, raising over $10 million dollars during its campaign and sparking intense interest within the tech press. The first units began shipping in late January, and as of today Pebble has sold over 200,000 units through its Kickstarter campaign and retail channels.

The smartwatch market is older than most people realize. These were entirely niche devices, not meant for the mainstream but targeted smartphone users when theirs was a small, exclusive club. Even now, the market isn't exactly rich with viable contenders. Qualcomm's Toq is more a proof of concept than a device that will sell a million units. Samsung's Galaxy Gear feels like a product meant to fill a marketing need, rather than one we could ever recommend to readers. Both of these devices are much more showy, compared to the Pebble's staid looks and function. So, what makes the Pebble a success, while the contenders with the biggest support falter?

The success is partly due to the Pebble's simplicity and its platform. If a Pebble was never tethered to another device or updated in any way, it would still be an attractive e-paper watch with 10 days of battery life. From that point, Pebble added a simple notification system. Driven by an app (available on iOS and Android), phone notifications are transmitted over Bluetooth to the watch. User interaction is at a minimum for notifications, though users can extend that functionality.

Out of the box, the device can handle most core notifications (SMS, e-mail, phone calls). Through additional Pebble apps, available on the Web, through platform app stores, and soon through Pebble's own portal, other uses can be added. Each new app offers its own take on the Pebble watchface, acquiring any necessary data or notifications and transmitting them to the phone as needed. Pebble app's also have the potential to extend interaction paradigms. Want to trigger a Tasker routine? Change your music? Set-up stock SMS replies? The Bluetooth specification lays out the framework for this sort of interaction, but it's the developers that have taken advantage.

The text watchface . . .

analog . . .

Menus!

Glance, with weather and phone battery life widget.

Today's weather, on your watch!

SMS list

SMS received

The pins and magnets of the charger.

The hardware, initially weighed down by manufacturing issues, has been mostly worked out. The smooth plastic body is attractive in that chunky digital watch way. The e-paper display has high contrast, is highly readable, and refreshes quickly. Navigating the UI is a simple matter, eschewing the tiny gestures of the Toq and gear in favor of chunky buttons on either side of the screen. The experience matches the form factor. Watches weren't meant to be swiped upon, they were meant to have buttons (or knobs).

It's the platform component that is most pertinent, though. The Pebble team focused their efforts on making their device friendly for users and developers alike. Their introduction of an appstore will only solidify these relationships. Meanwhile, Qualcomm's approach has the most potential, as it builds on its involvement with AllJoyn. But there aren't any AllJoyn products to interact with yet. It's an approach with promise, but not for several generations of development yet to come.

So for now, the Pebble has no real competition. And what competition the market offers lacks functions and doubles the cost. It's remarkable that the only viable smartwatch on the market costs just $150. That's even truer when you consider how much more the Pebble has yet to do.